24 February, 2017

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending Feb 24th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO Streaming sports will be up for discussion at the CASBAA OTT Summit next week; make sure you’ve registered. In case you wondered what the fuss is about, consider this: Twitter and Showtime announced a deal to run a triple-header boxing card this weekend, simultaneously on the TV network and the social media platform.  And Facebook is reportedly in discussions about live-streaming one Major League Baseball game a week during the upcoming 2017 season.

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

A major breakthrough in the UK this week, with Google and Microsoft agreeing to demote sites hosting pirated content in UK search results.  The industry has been pushing for this for years, and finally, with the support of the UK government’s Intellectual Property Department, a Code of Conduct has been agreed with the US search giants. In addition to moving any sites with infringing material to the second page of search results, the Code also commits both companies to stop using predictive “auto-complete” search terms that promote piracy (such as “watch for free” or “download for free”).  All of which is great news…. BUT.  The Code of Conduct only covers the UK; now we’ve just got to get Google and Bing to implement the same policy in the rest of the world.

 

 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

The Auckland High Court has ruled that fugitive p̶i̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶g̶p̶i̶n̶ “internet entrepreneur” Kim Dotcom can, in fact, be extradited from New Zealand to face trial in the US over his Megaupload website.  No perp walk is expected immediately, because of course, he and his co-defendants are going to appeal. In the meantime, he is nonetheless claiming victory, because the judgement states that under NZ law, he can’t be extradited for copyright infringement, just fraud.  It’s sort of a bizarre claim, but then again, not too much about Kim Dotcom isn’t bizarre.  This story has been playing out since 2012, so don’t expect a resolution any time soon; remember, the Napster trials went on for seven years.

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

The realm of streaming media had some particularly interesting stories this week. Walt Mossberg gives a roundup of what he learned at Code Media. A must-see presentation at Code Media is one by Ben Thomson where he explains the great unbundling. The Wrap has a great piece on How Crunchyroll Turned a Niche Audience Into a Streaming Powerhouse. The never-ending speculation and rationalisation doesn’t stop with apposing pieces on why or why not Apple should buy Netflix. And if Netflix hasn’t changed the game enough, they are now doing it with reality TV with the debut of Ultimate Beastmaster. They will release six different versions, featuring 108 competitors with 60 different episodes of the show tailored to local audiences in the U.S., Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Germany and Japan.

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

In South Korea Kakao, operator of the country’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk and portal website Daum has announced it is upping its game in relation to online video. It has streamilined its multi-platform video services “Kakao TV” to take on foreign services such as YouTube. The company unified its two existing video services and the new video service will be available not only through PCs and mobile devices but more importantly will also be made available on Kakao Talk, South Korea’s  most-used mobile instant messenger app. Kakao also said it was using popular Korean hosts, better known as broadcast jockeys (BJs), as Kakao TV play directors and expects the presence of popular content creators will help the platform attract new viewers.

 

 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

As an industry, we’ve worried for years about whether people are watching our ads; now the people who’ve been eating our lunch are starting to get the same stomach ache.  A new study from Interpublic’s Magna Global says 2/3rds of US consumers skip online video ads as soon as possible, and 75% of them do it out of habit.  But even though they’re skipping, Magna has also found that the impressions made in the few seconds viewers are watching are still valuable; which is a good thing, since later this year, YouTube is going to be dropping its “unskippable” 30-second ads completely. Stay tuned for a new standard — the six-second online spot.

 

 

Jane Buckthought Advertising Consultant

Knowing where your on-line advertising is being placed is difficult to manage. Jaguar Land Rover issued a statement on Friday that said it was “very concerned” with online ads being used on extremist sites and it had stopped all UK digital advertising until an investigation had been completed. Ads for the Jaguar F-Pace appeared on YouTube next to a pro-ISIS video that had been viewed more than 115,000 times, but have since been removed.

 

 

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

We’ve written a lot about new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who spoke at the CASBAA Convention in 2015; now he’s repeating the same “light touch” regulatory message he delivered on our stage, this time on CNBC.  What he says seems pretty sensible to us, but there are still people convinced that internet service supply is a monopoly…….I just don’t see that.  (Every US urban area I know has at least a couple, and sometimes more, of internet providers.)   Of course, Pai has plenty of supporters, too, and even though the broad-gauge “Title II” regulation of internet providers continues to be supported by a powerful lobby of people saying we should be alarmed about the possibility it will be relaxed, Pai is still not saying anything about that yet.

 

 

Mark Lay Vice President, Singapore

Every week or so I ask my kids what they have failed at recently because if they aren’t failing some, then they haven’t been pushing hard enough. In the business of re-landing rockets, SpaceX would be a great child. Now, I love seeing rockets blast off but there is something even cooler seeing them land
again. Out of 11 attempts at re-landing rockets (flying robot that’s great at math), SpaceX has had 3 failures and 8 successes. Their last landing on Sunday, as part of their successful launch of their Falcon 9 with a 5,500 pound payload of cargo to the International Space Station, was spectacular.

 

 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Mainland streaming giant iQiyi has raised a warchest of US$1.5 billion to fund its ongoing battle with Alibaba and Tencent in the mainland China market.  The Baidu subsidiary is expected to use the new funds for content development and building out its subscription business (about which Ericsson might very well have something to say!).  But even though they’ve recently bought 300 hours of CBeebies content, don’t expect iQiyi to go on a shopping spree in Hollywood, especially with Wanda’s billion-dollar purchase of Dick Clark Productions stalled by the Chinese government.  However, despite headlines declaring that deal to be dead, it remains to be seen whether mainland officials have actually killed it, or if they are just pondering if it is as “irrational” as some critics think.

 

 

Kevin Jennings Vice President, Programme

News from Pakistan that the broadcast regulatory body PEMRA has requested Government funding for the long-awaited transition from analogue to digital.  PEMRA requested Rs75 million as seed capital to set up its own Universal Service Fund for the proposed project and is looking for further funding in excess of US$3 million. The proposed structure promises not only improved services but software would be developed for monitoring up to 250 channels, compared to only 50 being monitored at present. While PEMRA intends to charge registered licence holders to fund the USF, the Pakistani Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has already set up a Universal Service Fund where telecom companies contribute 1.5 percent of their gross annual earnings to establish telecom infrastructure. Regardless, the request from PEMRA is likely to be approved with little resistance. A few people are crying foul but mostly because projects are continuously delayed and costs continue to escalate.

 

 

Christopher Slaughter CEO

Next Monday morning here in Asia, expect productivity to drop as the 89th
Academy Awards get going; just don’t expect the winners to be mega-blockbusters of years gone by.  And while there is always the chance of a long-shot, maybe don’t push your luck by betting on it.   The show is almost certain to have political overtones this year, but it’s unlikely to be the subject of tweets from the White House, apparently.  Oh, and in case you wondered, La La Land is going to win a few things.